KAWIT (TIP): A gunman armed with a semi-automatic pistol killed at least five people and wounded 11 others as he rampaged through a slum on the outskirts of the Philippine capital on January 4, authorities said. The ordeal, which took place in a rundown residential area and a market about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Manila, ended when the gunman died in a gunbattle with police, said investigating officer Arnulfo Lopez. “It was random.

He would fire at anybody who crossed his path,” Lopez said. A seven-year-old girl was one of the people killed, with four other children among the wounded, according to Lopez.

He identified the suspect as Ronaldo Bae, a middle-aged man who had once contested and lost an election for the post of local village chief. Initial police reports had identified the gunman as “Ronald Pae”. Lopez said no motive for the killings had yet been determined, but residents said Bae had been drinking heavily on Thursday night.

They said the rampage began near Bae’s home in a rundown part of Kawit town and nearby neighbors were among those killed. “He was running swiftly and waving his gun… I told my children, and grandchildren to run,” Maita Lacorte, one of Bae’s neighbors and the aunt of the dead seven-year-old girl, told AFP.

Lopez said Bae shot dead the girl in her home. Another neighbour, 56-year-old Alberto Fernandez, was also shot as he stood on his porch, according to the victim’s brother-in-law, Lito Ronquillo. Ronquillo spoke to AFP in the narrow street where the initial shootings took place.

A bullet hole could be seen in a window above the porch where Fernandez died. Bae then walked towards a nearby market, shooting more people before returning home where police demanded he surrender, according to Lopez.